December 10, 2018, Bangkok – Real estate private equity firm Conduit House is the major sponsor for this years London’s Architectural Association – “The Bangkok Visiting School” which is to be held in Bangkok from December 10 to December 21, 2018. The visiting school focus this year is on “Trees in Bangkok’.
“The Bangkok Visiting School will continue its investigation of everyday life in Bangkok”, said Grant Healy, Managing Director of Conduit House. “This year there is more than 50 students, many from London’s Architectural Association attending under the direction of Mark Cousins, Director, AA History & Theory Studies.”
The program aim is to develop artistic and architectural ways of enabling students to work upon a particular issue which arises for them out of their exploration of Bangkok. This in turn is based on the trips and the visits which the school will have organised. Last year, the students showed increasing confidence and the result was a month-long exhibition in Bangkok. This year the school is focusing on the role of trees in the city. We find that trees are everywhere in cities but curiously they attract little scholarly architectural or artistic attention.
The first part of the course will consist in visits to wooded areas in Bangkok, trees in public spaces and also to single trees. The school will be asking questions at different scales: what is the role of trees in Bangkok in general? How do the inhabitants of Bangkok react to particular trees? How do trees affect different types of space? What is the relationship of trees to roads? How do parks and other public spaces treat their trees? How do the seasons of the tree affect the appearance of the city? What is the role of trees in private gardens? Is there a characteristic view of wood in Bangkok? What about dead trees and fake trees?
There are other more indirect relations. What do the trees do to the light in Bangkok? How do the trees differ at different phases of day and night? We are also concerned with how the city manages, conserves and secures the future of the trees in Bangkok. We are interested in how the management of trees involves minor and major tree surgery. In many cities, the practice of pollarding has a dramatic effect on the tree and on its appearance. We will be able to document this and to produce a critique of its uncontrolled use. What is an intelligent way to look after urban trees. Beyond this, we are interested in the relations of citizens to trees on the individual or group bases. What uses are the trees put to in Bangkok in anything from children’s games to the provision of shade. What would happen if the use of tree was intensified and reproduced an urban forest?